Price Book
A Salesforce object that contains a list of products and their prices, with a standard price book holding default prices and custom price books containing special pricing for different markets, customer segments, or promotions.
Definition
A Salesforce object that contains a list of products and their prices, with a standard price book holding default prices and custom price books containing special pricing for different markets, customer segments, or promotions.
In plain English
“A Price Book is a Salesforce object that contains a list of products and their prices. The standard price book holds your default prices, and you can create custom price books for special pricing in different markets, customer segments, or promotions.”
Worked example
Larkbrook Software has three Price Books: a Standard Price Book holding the public list prices for all 80 products; an Enterprise Price Book with negotiated discounts for the top-tier customer segment; and an EMEA Price Book with euro-denominated prices for European customers. When an AE creates a Quote for a US-based mid-market customer, she selects the Standard Price Book; the Quote line items pull list prices automatically. For an enterprise EMEA customer she'd pick the EMEA Price Book and the line items would come back in euros at negotiated rates. Price Books separate market-specific pricing from the underlying product catalog.
Why Price Book matters
A Price Book is a Salesforce object that contains a list of products and their prices, with a standard price book holding default prices and custom price books containing special pricing for different markets, customer segments, or promotions. The Standard Price Book always exists when products are enabled and serves as the baseline; custom price books offer alternative pricing for specific scenarios.
Price books are how Salesforce supports pricing variations without requiring multiple product records. The same product can appear in multiple price books with different prices: standard pricing in the Standard Price Book, premium pricing in an Enterprise Customers price book, promotional pricing in a Quarterly Promo price book. Sales reps select the appropriate price book when adding products to opportunities or quotes. Mature pricing setups use price books strategically, with Salesforce CPQ providing additional capabilities for complex pricing scenarios.
How to set up Price Book
Price Books are catalogs of Products with their associated prices. The Standard Price Book is the master; Custom Price Books are subsets for specific customers, regions, or contracts. Every Opportunity needs a Price Book before products can be added.
- Open the Price Books tab (or Setup → Price Books in some configurations)
App Launcher → Price Books.
- Click New
Top-right. The Standard Price Book is auto-created — you can't delete it. Custom Price Books are what you build here.
- Set Name and Description
Convention: "<Region> - <Year>" or "<Customer Tier> - <Currency>".
- Tick Active
Inactive Price Books don't appear in the Opportunity Price Book picker.
- Save
Empty Price Book is created. Now add products.
- Open the Price Book → Products related list → Add Products
Multi-select Products from your catalog. Each Product needs a List Price entered for this Price Book before it's usable.
- For each Product: enter List Price
Different from the Standard Price. List Price is what this Price Book quotes.
Auto-created, can't delete. Holds the master Standard Price for every Product. Required as the floor.
Subsets with override List Prices. Used for tiered pricing, regional pricing, contract-specific pricing.
Inactive Price Books don't appear in pickers. Useful for staging next year's prices.
The link record between a Product and a Price Book that holds the List Price for that Product in that Price Book.
- A Product cannot be added to an Opportunity until it's in a Price Book with a List Price. New Products without a Standard Price entry are invisible to Sales — "why is this product missing?" tickets always trace here.
- An Opportunity's Price Book is locked once line items are added. To change Price Books, remove all line items first — destructive operation if not careful.
- Multi-currency orgs need a Price Book Entry per currency per Product per Price Book. The matrix grows fast — plan a script to manage if you have hundreds of products.
How organizations use Price Book
Maintains custom price books for different regions and customer segments, with the appropriate book selected per opportunity.
Uses promotional price books for time-limited campaigns, with prices automatically reverting after the promo ends.
Combines standard and custom price books with Salesforce CPQ for complex pricing scenarios.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Price Book.
- Products and Price BooksSalesforce Help
- Manage Price BooksSalesforce Help
Test your knowledge
Q1. What is a Price Book?
Q2. What's the Standard Price Book?
Q3. When use custom price books?
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